The table below shows the runs saved above average per 150 games for all the major league third basemen with 600 or more innings in 2007. Brandon Inge did consistently well on each system and his Average Range Score (ARS) of +14 led all third baseman in the majors. On the other hand, new Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera (-21) was one of the worst third basemen in baseball in 2007. That's a 35 run difference between the two of them which is a lot. Cabrera, of course, more than makes up the difference with his hitting. However, with a very left-handed staff and some ground ball pitchers , Cabrera could hurt them defensively if he doesn't improve. The hope is that his intense off-season conditioning program will improve his range to the point that he will be an average defender.

Inge is not the only good defensive third baseman hoping to find a full-time job some place. Major league ARS leader Pedro Feliz (+27) is currently a free agent. Ryan Zimmerman of the Nationals finished second at +21. The trailers were Brewers third sacker Ryan Braun (+36 ) and Garrett Atkins of the Rockies (+25).

While I wasn't optimistic, I was hoping the upgrade from Guillen to Renteria would cover more of the gap between Cabrera and Inge than it did.

Between the two, the Tigers are still giving up 25 runs on defense. Hopefully, Cabrera will be a little better than last year and having Jones in left and Guillen at first will make up some of that ground.

Thanks for the good work and for visiting my use of your work on McCovey Chronicles. I have modified it to replace pure VORP with VORP adjusted to 150 games as your defensive averages are. I wondered what you thought of this adjustment.

hmm. to really have it make sense you would need to use an offensive stat that doesn't give a value over replacement, like say Bill James's Runs Created or David Smith's Base Runs. I'm not sure if these defensive metrics are adjusted for situation, but the second of those is.

Otis, you are correct and it came up before (on Rainman's blog). I think he's looking for something quick and dirty though and it's hard to find RCAA for all the players. Plus, he's only looking at one position so I think it's ok to do what he's doing. If he was comparing players at different positions, it would be more problematic.

It made a small difference with a few of the players changing where they were on the list. Only Braun significantly improved his positon on the list and nobody really significantly lowered their position on the list. None the less I think the change did make a necessary correction and Braun's value was indeed understanted before this correction.

Thanks! But why didn't you add RC per 150 games to ARS which is also per 150 games. Would this not make the list more accurate measurement of the comparitive value of the thirdbasemen. You are actually just repeating the mistake I made when I used VOPP instead of VORP adjusted to 150 games in my original list.

Otis -- using straight runs created is problematic because you're not using a replacement level.

GiantsRainman -- can you give me a link to your use of these numbers at McCovey?

BPro's VORP numbers don't use very good positional adjustments, but they're probably the best you'll find publicly. Their problem is that they adjust positions based on average offensive performance at each position. You really want to adjust based on difficulty of playing the position. For example, center fielders are actually pretty decent hitters AND defenders. Overall, there's more talent in CF than at 2B. But making it a zero sum game like BPro does removes the value of the center fielders.

Otis -- that's correct, but you're not using an "above replacement" figure. Straight runs created just divides up all of the runs scored by a team between its contributors. Even replacement-level hitters will accumulate 50 or so runs created over a full season. That is, a team full of replacement-level hitters will still score like 450 runs (numbers for example, only.) You need to subtract out replacement-level runs from runs created before using it in an analysis.